Translator: Foxs' Wuxia
Turned out after running away for half a day, Kou Zhong and Yang Gongqing finally could not take it anymore, they found a strategically situated and easy to defend place to take a little break; who would have thought that not even half an enemy came to pursue? Kou Zhong knew in his heart that the turn of events was not too encouraging, he guessed that Li Zitong was seizing this golden opportunity to attack Liangdu ahead of him via the watercourse. After some discussion with Yang Gongqing and Ma Chang, he left the Thousand-Li Dream behind, and taking Wuming along, he set off alone; coming across a mountain he went over the mountain, encountering a mountain range he crossed the mountain range, he rushed back along the canal. From time to time, Wuming would fly up into the sky to scout the road ahead for him, and finally he ran into Xu Ziling and the others.
The two sides met, they learned about each other’s situation, naturally they were very happy. After understanding thoroughly that the enemy was about to attack, Kou Zhong hastily sent a messenger to meet Yang Gongqing, to notify him not to rush back in a hurry, because the safety of the troops was the top priority.
After another bout of busyness of moving an army and sending a general, Kou Zhong, his muscles weary his strength exhausted – pulled Xu Ziling toward a large rock at the lower reaches of the gorge to sit down. “Xiongdi!” he said, “I am really very grateful to you, otherwise I would lose this battle very badly; not only Liangdu would be difficult to protect, my Shao Shuai Army would also melt like ice and break like tiles. His Niang’s! Gui Xiliang and Xing Rong, these two kids, are really not human. I trusted them so much, but they betrayed me.”
Xu Ziling said, “I knew you were going to blame them wrongly. The friendship that has been established since childhood is the most sincere friendship; they definitely are not that kind of shameless disciples.” And then he explained his analysis.
Kou Zhong’s entire being relaxed; he laughed and said, “Luckily I have you around to dispel doubts and solve the problem. If those two kids really betrayed me, the harm they brought me would be very great. Tonight’s battle will be under your, LaoGe’s command, right now I am so tired that I only want to lie down and sleep. Humph! It would be best if Xiang Yushan, that kid, is together with Li Zitong on one boat, not only we can confirm that it was not Xiliang and Xiao Rong who betrayed us, but we can also slaughter him in passing.”
Xu Ziling said, “Our odds of success in this battle is very high, because Li Zitong does not know at all that we have Yang Gongqing and his army nearby, he also thought that you emptied the city and went out; therefore, he will only care about coming to the north at full speed and neglect to take precautions. What’s your plan?”
Kou Zhong smiled and said, “It depends on how big of a strike we can inflict on Li Zitong’s navy fleet. The flywheel boats’ speed and flexibility are far superior to any ship in Li Zitong’s navy, plus we are going with the current. Attacking them while they are unprepared, perhaps we could completely wipeout his more than a hundred ships. At that time, we could seize the opportunity to go down south. We cut off all waterway traffic to and from Zhongli first to isolate Zhongli; at that time, how could Zhongli’s defending general not surrender? If Zhongli falls, Gaoyou will be the object inside my pocket. Other than hiding inside the city walls of Jiangdu and trembling, what else can Li Zitong do?”
Xu Ziling looked up at the bright moon in the sky, he said, “The command authority over the entire army can be handed over to Xu Xingzhi, you and I will board one of the flywheel boats; with your Shooting the Sun Bow plus my Mulberry Wood Bow, I am sure the enemy won’t be able to endure.”
Astonished, Kou Zhong said, “Xingzhi? He does not have any experience conducting military operation at all.”
Pointing to his head, Xu Ziling said, “But he has more brains than anybody else. As long as there is an experienced person, such us Bai Wenyuan – by his side working together with him, I guarantee that he has Zhuge-Wuhou-being-reborn kind of ability. Other than Xuan Yong, he is the most outstanding talent in your Shao Shuai Army. By letting him fighting a battle in which victory is in our grasp, it would bring inestimable benefits both to his prestige and confidence. Moreover, you need someone whose ability and wisdom are not under you and me to preside over the general situation whenever you go out to battle.”
Noticing Kou Zhong appeared to be still hesitating, Xu Ziling reminded him, “Don’t forget that we will be personally involved in the battle; if something goes wrong, we can still remedy it as the time draws near, right?”
Kou Zhong finally agreed; he said, “Your proposals have never been wrong. There is not much time, I have to trouble Ling Shao to summon all parties concerned, to let them know that Xingzhi will have the authority and responsibility to conduct this battle.”
Twenty-eight flywheel boats, each one was five zhang long, two zhang wide – were storing up momentum in wait at a hidden place on the upper reaches of the gorge. All the sails of the boat were dismantled, since they were not being used, the boats would be propelled purely by foot power. The best thing was that the big round wheel at the aft had more than sixty live plates mounted on the wooden wheel, connected to the rudder. Therefore, if the angle and direction of the plates as they hit the water were adjusted, the flywheel boat would be able to glide on the surface of the water as if it was flying, just like a fish.
The crossbow machine on the ship’s bow was the most fierce and severe heavy weapon of the flywheel boat; each machine could continuously shoot twelve special-made heavy crossbow arrows, which could reach eight hundred paces. When a cloth soaked in kerosene was added to it, it would become fire arrow, the most threatening weapon in naval battle.
On both sides of the ships, steel plates were installed to guard against the arrow, extended from both sides at an angle and met at the top, shaped like a ‘man’ character [人] forming a roof, with round holes on it, for breathing and for shooting arrows. The soldiers and the helmsman were hiding inside.
The bow of the ship was also equipped with sharp steel cone, the original construction was similar to the one fitted on ordinary warships; however, due to the flywheel boat’s flexibility, on collision, naturally the destructive power was something that ordinary bulky warship would not be able to match.
Kou Zhong, Xu Ziling and Bu Tianzhi stood on one of the boats, which, at the last moment was christened as the ‘Shao Shuai Flagship’. Xu Ziling was in charge of manning the crossbow machine at the bow, while Kou Zhong had the Shooting the Sun Bow in his hand. As for the fire arrows, he was assisted by four Shao Shuai soldiers, who were particularly nimble, to supply him with the arrows. On the helm was Chen Laomou, who had ample experience in steering the boat. Bu Tianzhi was in charge of the overall situation, he would give the command to advance or retreat, conveying Kou Zhong’s orders using flag signal.
The canal was thick with the tense atmosphere of mountain rain about to come; Wuming was spiraling in high altitude above the gorge. Suddenly she dove down and flew in a circle before diving down toward Kou Zhong. Kou Zhong raised his right hand to let Wuming grab it and perch on it.
Kou Zhong laughed and said, “Sweet baby darling, is the enemy coming?”
Wuming’s pair of eyes, like torches, stared fixedly in the direction of the gorge, she spread out her wings, her appearance was mighty to the extreme.
Kou Zhong laughed aloud and said, “Go back to the sky and play!”
As if she understood human talk, Wuming flapped her wings and soared high into the sky, and became a small black dot under the bright moon in the blink of an eye.
Greatly astonished, Xu Ziling asked, “I thought she only understands Tujue language?”
Shrugging his shoulders, Kou Zhong said, “Even ghosts do not know how she understands it either; might be because all day long she listens to me speaking Han language, over time, she is finally Sinicized, ha!”
Smiling wryly, Bu Tianzhi said, “I am now so nervous that my palms are sweating, unexpectedly you guys are still in the mood to chat and joke; I wonder if you can teach me this ability of moving troops with chatting and joking?”
Kou Zhong cheerfully said, “After fighting two more battles, Zhi Shu will be like us, won’t take any battle too seriously. This is a question of habit. Huh? Xingzhi wants us to pull back two li? What the hell is going on?”
Xu Ziling smiled and said, “Now the command is under Xingzhi and not you, Kou Zhong. Military orders are like mountains, disobedience is punishable by beheading. Quickly do as he said!”
The crowd looked up at the top of the cliff. The bright moon was shining, high above the cliff, the signalman was waving the flags, directing them to pull back two li.
Kou Zhong nodded to Bu Tianzhi, now it was Bu Tianzhi’s turn to wave the flags to signal the twenty-eight flywheel boats to turn around quickly. ‘Whoosh! Whoosh!’ the water was stirred, just like that, the boats went against the stream to retreat to the north, saving the time to make a turn.
Two enemy warships sailed out of the gorge one in front of the other.
Watching this, everybody was disappointed, but they understood. The two warships were twenty zhang apart. If the other enemy ships were maintaining this distance going into the gorge, then at any moment there would be no more than four ships inside the gorge. Even if the trebuchets were able to completely destroy the enemy ships inside the gorge, it would be no more than four ships, the damage to the enemy navy was minimal. If they followed the original plan, when the enemy warship entered the gorge and they immediately launch the surprise attack, then the enemy’s huge fleet could come ashore outside the gorge to fight back. With the enemy’s military strength, they would definitely have to pack their food and leave before they finished eating.
Xu Xingzhi made a prompt decision; he changed the strategy at the last moment, waiting for half the enemy fleet to pass the gorge before starting to cast the stones in violent attack, to cut the enemy’s fleet into two sections so that the head and the tail could not correspond to each other, and then use the flywheel boats as the main assault force, they would attack with the stream, using the newest invention in boat technology, the new and original tactics, attacking the enemy with blitzkrieg strategy that the enemy had no time to deal with it.
Bu Tianzhi nodded and said, “Xu Xiansheng indeed has original position in military strategy, he does not disappoint in bearing Shaoshuai’s trust.”
One enemy ship after another sailed out of the gorge, forming a grandiose procession, covering the river section before their eyes, extending continuously, unending, making people feel intimidated at the first glance.
Nearly forty enemy warships sailed speedily out of the gorge, the sail masts were heavy, on the deck human shadows were flickering; obviously, as they got closer to Liangdu, they were in a state of high alert.
The battle drums on top of the cliff were suddenly sounded, the stone-throwing machines were ringing endlessly.
Kou Zhong shouted loudly, “Brothers! Charge!”
Inside the steel-plate reinforced cabin, thirty warriors, sixty legs stepped on the pedals at the same time, the flywheel boat turned around quickly. With Chen Laomou at the helm, the Shao Shuai Flagship was the first to make a turn, out of the river bend, sailing speedily toward the first enemy warship thirty zhang away.
The torch was lighted, it ignited the fire arrow.
Kou Zhong blow out his qi and raised his voice, he pulled open the curtain of the battle between the two navies by shooting the first fire arrow. From the Shooting-the-Sun Bow it shot away, drawing a wonderful, colorful trajectory over the air above the canal, hitting the fully opened sail of the enemy’s warship. Immediately raging flames arose.
Xu Ziling immediately unleashed the crossbow machine, twelve fire arrows shot out one after another, either breaking into the hull, piercing through the ship’s hold, or hitting the other side’s sail mast. None of the arrows missed their target.
This moment the enemy’s archers woke up with a start and returned fire, but under Bu Tianzhi’s command, the flywheel boat ahead nimbly darted toward the shore, so that the flywheel boat behind it met the enemy warship, which had already received not a light injury.
By the time the Shao Shuai Flagship rounding the enemy’s first ship, the afore-mentioned ship had already fallen into raging flames and violently billowing thick smoke; one after another the enemy soldiers jumped into the canal to run for their life.
Immediately the enemy warships’ disposition of troops was in great chaos, black smoke permeated the air in the canal, with their vision reduced to nearly nothing, they practically did not know what happened. This moment the crossbow machine on the Shao Shuai Flagship was reloaded, it turned around from the outside, near the shore, and sliced across the middle toward the third ship of the enemy’s fleet. The second ship was taken care of by another friendly boat. One strike and was successful, the Shao Shuai military personnel on the other flywheel boats had their morale greatly boosted. Their fighting spirit like a rainbow, their confidence rose up to 100%.
The enemies on the target enemy ship had their attention fully focused on what happened ahead, plus the Shao Shuai Flagship did not have the least bit of light, their movement fast and nimble, by the time they realized the Shao Shuai Flagship was near, to their great regret, it was already too difficult to turn around.
Fire arrows shot in rapid succession, the sails and the deck caught fire at the same time.
‘Boom!’
Then came the terrible cracking noise as the hull was fractured, wood chips splattered everywhere, the Shao Shuai Flagship’s sharp and solid bow, carried by its momentum, smashed the enemy warship’s starboard side, splitting up a large hole on the enemy warship’s hull, before it swiftly retreated.
Kou Zhong brandished his bow to strike down three strong arrows shooting at them; he shouted loudly, “Half the boats come with me, the rest stay here and fight to your heart’s content.”
Bu Tianzhi promptly issued the order.
The Shao Shuai Flagship led thirteen flywheel boats, they sailed with the current into the gorge. Encountering the enemy warship along the way, they attacked and promptly retreated, not daring to stay. They wanted to, before the enemy on the other side of the gorge had the chance to come ashore – launch deadly attack on them.
Black smoke filled the air, the enemy navy’s disposition of troops was in great mess, some of them turned around, trying to escape, and some, in their panic, crashed against the reef near the shore. The allotted share of the great and mighty armada was only to be slaughtered.
The Shao Shuai Flagship led the thirteen flywheel boats into the gorge.
The six enemy warships in the gorge were either burning or broken that they capsized and sank. The canal was full of the enemies who were trying to run for their lives to both banks, their cry shook the heavens.
Kou Zhong shouted loudly, “Whether Jiangdu will be ours or not, it will depend on this battle!”
The warriors on the boat responded in chorus, their morale soared to the highest level.
The Shao Shuai Flagship took the lead to rush out of the gorge’s mouth. Kou Zhong swept his gaze around, he knew that victory was in their grasp. With Jiao Hongjin and Luo Qifei commanding two units of the Shao Shuai Army, they split up toward both shores and used fire arrows to deal violent blow toward the rear of the enemy’s navy, which had been broken into two sections, burning more than a dozen enemy warships. The rest of the enemy warships, because they were unclear of what is true and what is false of the situation on the shore, one after another they turned around to flee. However, the canal was, after all, unlike Yangtze River, Yellow River, that kind of big rivers, so that they collided against each other, or crashed against the reef near the shore, and became a great mess. Thick black smoke covered up the sky and concealed the moon, the enemy and us were difficult to tell.
Kou Zhong shouted his order, in spreading-over-the-river-and-covering-the-sky momentum, the crossbows shot the arrows toward the enemy warships.
In the Battle of Liangdu Gorge, the Shao Shuai Army seized total victory, they destroyed more than eighty enemy warships, the number of enemy warships able to escape back to Zhongli were no more than twenty.
On Shao Shuai Army’s side fifteen men were killed, less than fifty were wounded, three flywheel boats were destroyed and sank, but they killed nearly two thousand enemies, and took the enemy soldiers prisoners more than five thousand. In the short term, Li Zitong not only could forget about invading to the north, whether or not they could defend Jiangdu had also become a question.
Nobody had any experience handling the surrendering soldiers, what to do with the more than five thousand captured enemies was a big headache for them.
Kou Zhong sighed and said, “Now I understand why in the ancient times, after the Battle of Changping [c. 260 BC], Bai Qi buried 400,000 surrendering soldiers alive, because that was the most clean and efficient, otherwise, to behead them one by one, I am afraid no one could bear it; afterwards, I don’t think they could sleep peacefully. But now, what do we do? Just to feed them is already not easy.”
Xu Ziling said, “Since we must not kill them, we have no choice but to set them free. But a defeated army on the run might bring about great disaster to common people along the way, we must consider it in details.”
This moment Xu Xingzhi and five Shao Shuai soldiers, escorting an enemy general – were coming toward them. The two boys turned their attention to look, surprisingly it was the chief great general under Li Zitong’s command, Zuo Xiaoyou.
Kou Zhong laughed aloud and said, “Turns out it is Zuo Da Jiangjun!”
Zuo Xiaoyou’s hands were tied behind his back, but he still showed an unyielding expression. Letting out a cold humph, he said, “A warrior can be killed but not humiliated; if you want to kill me, just do it at your convenience, but you must not humiliate me.”
Xu Xingzhi smiled and said, “Xingzhi was going through the prisoners to interrogate them, only then did I find there is Zuo Jiangjun’s honored self among them.”
Kou Zhong secretly praised Xu Xingzhi’s attentiveness to details. Raising his thumb toward Zuo Xiaoyou in praise, he said, “Good man! Immediately untie him for me!”
Following his order, the soldiers loosened the ropes binding Zuo Xiaoyou.
Kou Zhong cast Xu Ziling a meaningful glance, he pulled Zuo Xiaoyou aside to have a word with him; he said, “Now, what we are talking about, the Heaven will know, the Earth will know, and only the two of us will know.”
Zuo Xiaoyou coldly cut him off, “If you, Kou Zhong, think that I am a man greedy for life, afraid of death, then you are gravely mistaken.”
Remaining tranquil and even-tempered, Kou Zhong said, “Not only Da Jiangjun is not a man greedy for life, afraid of death, you are also a man of steel who is made of iron. Honestly, when I was young, I already admired you very much. Now, I am not persuading you to surrender even more, but just want to talk things through with you. As long as we both feel happy and could see the sincerity, I could immediately let Da Jiangjun go. I could even let Da Jiangjun bring your men back to Zhongli.”
Zuo Xiaoyou revealed a disbelieving expression.
Slapping his chest, Kou Zhong said, “When did what I said does not count? Da Jiangjun ought to know this fact.”
Zuo Xiaoyou muttered to himself irresolutely for half a day. Revealing a bitter and astringent expression, he sighed and said, “I wonder if Shaoshuai is employing a stratagem to entrap me?”
Kou Zhong smiled and said, “Is Da Jiangjun afraid Li Zitong would mistakenly believe that Da Jiangjun has surrendered to me?”
Zuo Xiaoyou said, “If Shaoshuai were in Li Zitong’s place, the captured officers and soldiers all returned in good health, what would you think?”
Revealing a difficult expression, Kou Zhong said, “In that case, would Da Jiangjun tell me what to do?”
Zuo Xiaoyou stared fixedly at him for half a day, as if he was trying to gauge his sincerity – without speaking at all.
Kou Zhong said, “To be frank with you, after this battle, Li Zitong’s allotted share is only to sit and wait for death [idiom: resigned to one’s fate]. Currently, Hainan Island already fell into the Song Clan’s hands. Compared to Song Que, Li Zitong, Shen Faxing, Fu Gongyou, and the likes are merely clowns who jump around the beam. Da Jiangjun has no intention to surrender to me, it’s not because of Li Zitong at all, rather, you keep your eyes on Li Shimin. am I right? However, Li Shimin is not the Son of Heaven receiving the heaven’s command yet; that person is, maybe, Li Jiancheng. By the time Li Shimin conquer the rivers and mountains [i.e. the country] will be the day of the birds are over, the bow is put away. Without Li Shimin’s House of Tang, could they become the Tujue people’s match? I, Kou Zhong, am not a warmonger at all, but I simply am unwilling to have the great and good rivers and mountains to be ravaged and trampled by the Tujue people’s armored horses; nothing more!”
Smiling a bitter smile, Zuo Xiaoyou said, “Who said I am unwilling to surrender to you? It’s just that the officers and soldiers who came with me this time, most of them are brothers who have been with me, Zuo Xiaoyou for many years. Our homes and small families are all in Zhongli, hence we cannot but having consideration for them. Ay! Li Zitong is simply not a very capable person, it would be difficult for him to succeed. Shaoshuai should know this better than me.”
Kou Zhong spoke in great delight, “If Da Jiangjun indeed has this intention, then everything can be managed properly. Trust me! I will definitely figure out a way to satisfy rival demands, both to capture Zhongli, and also to protect Da Jiangjun and various brothers under your command’s family.”
Zuo Xiaoyou said, “To this day and age, I am afraid no one in the world would dare to belittle Shaoshuai’s men anymore. Just speaking about this battle, Shaoshuai is moving your troops marvelously, even Li Shimin is not as good as this.”
Kou Zhong cried, ‘Ashamed!’ inwardly; this battle’s victory was obtained extremely dangerously and extremely lucky, success or failure was only a fine line apart, it was all thanks to Xu Ziling pulling strongly against a crazy tide [idiom: to try hard to save a desperate crisis], so that the situation, which couldn’t be more inferior than this, could be completely reversed. Clearing his throat, he spoke modestly, “This time we are just a bit lucky.”
Zuo Xiaoyou did not expect that he was this young, yet unexpectedly could ‘win without being arrogant’; it was extremely rare. He said cheerfully, “Just now Shaoshuai seemed to have something hanging down your mind that you wanted to inquire about, I wonder what that was?”
Kou Zhong nodded and said, “I would like to ask: this time you guys attacking Liangdu, was Xiang Yushan, that kid offering advice behind the stage?”
Zuo Xiaoyou spoke in amazement, “Such a secret matter, Shaoshuai is even able to make one guess and hit the bullseye?”
Kou Zhong laid down the heavy burden in his heart, because he finally confirmed that he was not betrayed by good friends. Wrapping his arm around Zuo Xiaoyou’s shoulders, he pulled him toward the other side, where Xu Ziling was speaking with Xu Xingzhi. He said, “Speed is a crucial asset in war, practically Zuo Da Jiangjun was not captured by us at all; you were simply fleeing in a bit difficult situation. After stepping on and breaking a few pairs of shoes, you were finally succeeded in leading your five thousand men escaped back to Zhongli, right?”
Hearing that, Zuo Xiaoyou understood tacitly; he nodded his agreement that it must be so.
Kou Zhong laughed and said, “Attacked by me, Li Zitong’s guts have turned cold. If my main forces press into his territory, I am sure he will flee back to Jiangdu, and then won’t all problems be like bamboo splits when it meets the knife’s edge [idiom: easily solved]? From now on, we are all brothers, blessings we will enjoy together, misfortune we will endure together. What I, Kou Zhong, have spoken, it has never been does not count.”
The two looked at each other and laughed together.
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